


panacea — desolation

by forsakenfemicide



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Medieval Medicine, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Relationship(s), Romance, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:22:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29776110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forsakenfemicide/pseuds/forsakenfemicide
Summary: Elfroot to quicken the cure. Embrium for cobwebs in the lungs. Blood Lotus as general and local anesthetic. Lanaste's seen it all—but this case is unique.People are dying in Skyhold. Haven has taken its toll on everyone. Beneath it all, Commander Cullen is facing a demon of his own that he cannot defeat by his lonesome. One single request from Seeker Cassandra is all it takes for Head Surgeon Lanaste to begin finding a cure for the terrifying effects that lyrium withdrawal has placed on Cullen's mind. Both have secrets neither want to share with one another, but both must stand strong in the face of an internal plot that has the capability to cripple the Inquisition for good. Perhaps they can stand side-by-side in the process—and after it all, find a future where there once was none.
Relationships: Cullen Rutherford/Original Character(s), Cullen Rutherford/Original Female Character(s), Male Inquisitor/Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus
Kudos: 2





	1. nursery seeds

There are too many.

They cough, they bleed, they die, their loved ones cry over them, beg for a funeral, get turned away from the graveyards because there’s not enough space. Lanaste does her best, but Haven was taxing for everyone, and more specifically on her herb stores. The Herald of Andraste is now the Inquisitor, but the hope for a new dawn is not enough to spontaneously knit together wounds both mental and physical.

So Lanaste is in the garden. Even so far north, the soil is soft, loamy, and nicely fertilized. She had not expected it, especially not after the massive blizzard that had characterized much of the Inquisition’s march to Skyhold. Still, it is not something she will complain about, especially not when her patients are dying in the clinics, the tents, on the ground. They’ve had to burn fires for days now just to warm up the soil for burial after burial after wretched burial.

Thus, on her hands and knees, she plants the seeds. Embrium for aromatherapy, elfroot for expedited wound recovery, blood lotus to be used as an anesthetic for surgeries and amputations--and Andraste knows there are too many amputations to complete. No skilled surgeons had escaped Haven with their lives, and so Lanaste is the only one left, and every surgery weighs heavily on the surface of her mind. One can only see so much viscera and gore before wishing to be somewhere else, someone else. So she has decided to be in the garden, taking a break from the people who desperately need her attention.

Is that selfish? She hopes not. In the end, tending to the garden helps them in the long run anyway.

The peace doesn’t last for long. While the wind flutters through her alabaster hair and threatens to pull it from the tight yet messy up knot she has tugged it into, there are voices on the horizon. Lanaste does not raise her gaze from the ground, her scarred hands patting across a raised patch of soil over buried embrium seeds as she forces cold focus in her soul, but she does listen. With the blue sky stretched far overhead like canvas across a board, an entire battalion of soldiers chatter in small voices in the corner of the garden before being quieted entirely by a loud, commanding voice.

“Don’t dawdle,” calls the man, someone Lanaste can only assume is the commander. “Undercroft needs all of these boxes transported down the stairs without delay. Get to work.”

Immediately, there is a flurry of feet against the soil. Soldiers jump into the highest gear—maybe after transporting the boxes, they will be rewarded with a sorely-needed break from their severe commander. Some waver near Lanaste, pausing to speak to their fellow soldiers in hushed whispers that she cannot hear, but their words do not stop them from transporting the boxes ‘without delay.’ As the soldiers trod past, Lanaste extends one thin arm to her side to block their rambunctious feet from trampling one newly-planted plot of spindleweed. But, even despite her clear yet silent wish to keep the plants protected, one set of shoes gets dangerously close to her work.

Lanaste glances up. Her brows furrow, the corners of her mouth dip down, and a ball of anger knots within her. Every night, she gets only four hours of sleep, and she is not about to allow some young cadet ruin her work for whatever reason. Her hellfire eyes lift upwards, then her face clears like the sun on a stormy day just as her tongue curls to hurl venom at the man encroaching on her property. Oh, dear. She had almost yelled at Commander Cullen.

...That probably wouldn’t have ended well.

Slowly, her arm lowers, and she forcibly and silently busies herself with the seeds once again, all the better to hide the dawn rising upon her cheeks. She is content to let her mistake lie and act like it had never occurred in the first place, but she has never been so lucky.

“Ready to tell me off, were you?” he says to her in a rich, deep voice colores with mirth she does not think she deserves. “Could’ve made a good commander in another life. That expression alone could scare the breeches off of some of the recruits here.”

She wants to laugh, but she doesn’t. How can she when she can feel his gaze boring into the side of her head so keenly? Maker, why can’t he just leave her alone?

“Yes, well,” she begins, patting down one patch of soil with her dirt-stained hands. “I suppose I must settle for scaring off every nurse in the tents.”

“Quite the reputation. Some of my men are more scared of you than they are me, Head Surgeon Lanaste.”

It is this line that prompts her to send a surreptitious glance up to the man standing suspiciously close to her plants. He is a tall one, broad and muscular with sunset, tawny hair, and stubble that dares to crowd around a single rugged scar on the left side of his upper lip. He wields a strange charm to anyone else, but for Lanaste, he is nothing but an annoyance—although she supposes that everyone is.

Then, she scoffs and returns to her work. “So I am to believe that the Chief Commander of the Inquisition knows a meager field surgeon by name?”

His voice is harsher. It seems as if she has offended him, albeit in a minor form.

“What is that meant to imply?”

“Whatever you wish for it to imply, Commander,” Lanasts responds, removing a single blood lotus seed from a small canvas pouch. “It merely seems like you have better things to do than listen to barrack gossip.”

He chuckles, low and slow. “Considering you are the one pulling my men back from the brink, I do believe I have the right to take an interest,” Cullen responds with ease—has he practiced this response? “Is no one allowed to know you, Head Surgeon Lanaste?”

It is such a mouthful. Why must he insist on calling her by her title? She releases a sigh from her mouth without realizing it as she raises to her full height and straightens her back. He is taller than her and fuller, but she is not intimidated by the Commander. He may be able to destroy her with one light swipe from his longsword, but he is no match for her in wit, the only battle that matters in Skyhold. It is at this point that she fixes her eyes on him, red and framed by white eyelashes, and her gaze is so intense that she forces him to glance away when he had once stated back with so much confidence.

“Lanaste is fine,” she murmurs. “And it would be easier for everyone if I was not known at all. My life might be complete if I could do my work in peace.”

It is her excuse for getting out of this conversation. How long before he calls her a knife-ear? A rabbit? A dirty halla-rider? She does not think him to be that kind of man, but appearances can be deceiving. She cannot count on one hand how many human men she had rejected that had immediately responded in kind with an elven slur. Why must they call her such things when she barely connects with her own race in any meaningful way?

As she pats her trousers down to remove dirt and silt clinging to the knees, Cullen responds in a small voice, though she can hear the smile without even looking at him. “I’ll do my best to forget you, then.”

Lanaste opens her mouth to reply, but she is cut off by the stumble of feet behind her and a steel crest’s nervous adjustment. She is not entirely sure of what she has meant to say anyway, so perhaps this is mercy bequeathed upon her head with great, inimitable compassion.

“Commander,” a recruit says behind her in a raspy voice, all while Lanaste is leaning down to retrieve her wooden box of planting materials from the ground. “The last box has something strange in it. We figured you would want to inspect it before we decide to transport it.”

Cullen is quick to answer, and his voice shifts radically—he is no longer the farcical, charming man with a trembling stutter to the latter half of his sentences but a stern leader with a guiding hand and a tongue made of tempered steel. “Lead me to the box then, recruit,” he says to the recruit, but he does not leave before lowering his voice to speak to Lanaste in that same, small tone. “Another time, then?”

He promises something that Lanaste cannot promise back. What about her is so interesting to the Commander that he formally requests that they speak once again? Had her thorns not yet thrown him from his path? In response, Lanaste merely glances away from the box she carries to look Cullen in the eyes. “If you manage to catch me again, perhaps.”

With that, she is walking away from him. Across the grassy dip, from patch of loamy soil to patch of loamy soil, until she has reached a small overhang on the very edge of the garden that shields the high platform from the blustery winds rolling away from the Frostbacks. As she begins approaching a door embedded into messy stone bricks, the door itself opens, and in the entrance stands the Inquisitor himself. He has just been crowned the Inquisition de facto leader, giving him an aura of fear that is only exacerbated by his qunari heritage, but Lanaste is not afraid. She knows better than most that he is a big softie when he needs to be.

“Inquisitor,” she greets him swiftly and meets his gaze—the corners of her lips barely tick upward, half out of courtesy and half out of relief that he has saved her from the garden. “Is it time for your treatment?”

He lets out a loud, hearty laugh that sends reverberations through the air that so much as dares to exist in the same space he does. He looks about to clap her on the shoulder with a hand that dwarfs her face entirely, but he refrains—he is never quite sure of his own strength, and it can sometimes get the better of him. “You can read my mind, Lanaste!” he says jovially, a terribly crooked smile displayed to compliment his equally crooked nose. “Was just coming to find you. Still haven’t quite recovered from Haven. Hard at work as always, I see?”

He sends an appraising glance around the garden, and she chuckles as his eyebrows raise incredulously. “There’s always something to do,” Lanaste answers with a light tone as she brushes past the Inquisitor’s massive body and surges into the hallway he has just exited from. “C’mon. Let’s head to the infirmary and see what I have for you.”

She is content to begin the journey, but she is paused by the Inquisitor’s lowered voice. He has never been so inconspicuous as far as Lanaste has seen, prompting her to pause and glance over her shoulder at his face. He is staring at her, a strange smile on his face as he glances between her visage and the garden. “Cullen was starin’ at ya’ this whole time,” he mentions, and his smile grows impish. “What’s the story there?”

True to the Inquisitor’s words, Cullen is indeed staring at her even as she exits the garden and begins her long trek down a narrow stone hallway. As if on cue, as soon as Lanaste meets Cullen’s gaze, he is turning away—is that a hint of red she sees on his face?

It doesn’t matter, does it? She pointedly turns around to remove her eyes from Cullen’s face, though she knows the Inquisitor does not miss how her own face flushes at the mere notion of being watched so closely. “Not an interesting story, if that’s what you’re asking,” Lanaste finally answers, albeit in a terribly curt tone. “Follow me, Inquisitor. I have things to do beyond briefing you on Skyhold gossip.”

This finally spurns the Inquisitor into action. He is rapidly on her tail and following her down a narrow stone staircase with crumbling bricks on either side of them, but Lanaste does not exit the garden without feeling eyes burning into her back one last time.


	2. unto darkness

Three days after she had prepared the upper Skyhold garden, Lanaste is in the medical quarters, and her hands are busied with the Inquisitor’s chest wound.

It is dusk. The sun is falling on the horizon and casting a vibrant crimson glow across the mountainsides, igniting the distant snow caps in fiery hues and offering a warm palette to the rest of the fortress. There is a keen shift in activity all around Skyhold—it is warmer than it has been in past weeks, but the temperature is rapidly falling. Every kitchen employee is bustling from one place to another with baskets full of food items, and their faces ducked down into their threadbare scarves. Beyond the hallowed walls of the infirmary, the aromatic scent of turnip and barley stew reaches her on felicitous breezes.

The infirmary itself is better than it has been in recent times. While there are still too many people to fit within the meager beds or stuff behind the wooden walls, Lanaste has slowly put a dent in the number of people needing constant medical attention. Finally, she has taken in more and more people who had once been sleeping in tents in the courtyard. She has been allowed more hours of sleep with more medical recruits eager to assist in healing the needy in Skyhold, and while most of the recruits are terribly untrained with little to no experience, Lanaste has learned that most of them learn quickly. If they don’t, they aren’t far from being kicked out of the infirmary for good. There is no room for mistakes when an innocent person’s life is on the line.

Her pragmatic sense of healthcare has not earned Lanaste many fans in Skyhold, but she does not care about being well-liked. She cares about saving people.

At the very least, the Inquisitor seems to like her.

He’s sitting in front of her now, all muscles and smiles, and the red-headed dwarf is next to him, regaling each other with stories beyond their ken. Lanaste is half-listening as they speak—she had just fixed up a small wound on Varric’s arm a few moments beforehand, and now she is reapplying the poultice on the Inquisitor’s weeks-long gash across his chest. It had been sustained at Haven, but compared to the rest of the people who had escaped the disastrous event, the Inquisitor is doing far better than usual. It is as if he is blessed by the Maker—or something of the sort. At the very least, he actually escaped Haven. That is leagues better than what most people can claim.

She presses a mashed, goopy mass of crushed goldenflower and embrium across his wound, still bright red and angry but slowly healing, and the Inquisitor winces physically. Still, his face shows no sign of pain—Lanaste supposes that it is only predictable. Men, no matter their race, are never eager to show signs of weakness in front of others, and especially not Qunari, Tal-Vashoth or not. Varric doesn’t notice anyway—he’s still hurriedly explaining a story that is humorous enough to prompt the Inquisitor into a fit of chest-shaking laughs. As he rumbles, Lanaste glances up with a stern look.

“Still,” she commands of him. “Or your wound will get infected, and you’ll be sitting in here for a week vomiting into a bucket and sweating through the sheets.”

The Inquisitor is rightly cowed, but Varric only seems more encouraged.

“Shit, that kind of look is enough to scare the hair off my chest!” Varric croons, a hawk with the laugh of a hyena. “Didn’t think the Inquisitor was capable of quieting down for more than a second.”

A pointed look sent in Varric’s direction, a purse of her lips. “Are you capable of that, Tethras?”

Another laugh. Varric doesn’t seem fazed at all. “If I was, I wouldn’t be here.”

Whatever that is to mean, Lanaste doesn’t want to know. She turns back to the wound on the Inquisitor’s chest with narrowed eyes.

“I wouldn’t mess with her, Varric,” the Inquisitor warns the dwarf beneath his breath, though there is an air of mirth to his deep, accented tone. “She has a way of poking buttons until you break.”

“All bark, no bite, Inquisitor. That’s a classic one.”

Lanaste laughs, the first time she’s laughed in a while. “I wouldn’t be saying that to someone who could put poison into your tea when I should be putting herbs in.”

Varric pales, Lanaste laughs again. “Right. Point taken, Inquisitor.”

It isn’t as if she would really do it, but Varric is just concerned enough to keep his lips tight and his throat even tighter. As silence falls across the small trio, Lanaste’s nimble hands wrap the Inquisitor’s chest with bandages to keep the poultice in place, then she holds it in place with blood lotus pitch. A few seconds later, she is washing her palms in a basin of crystal clear water heated by crushed embrium seeds just beneath, and she is allowing the Inquisitor to stand to his full height—almost, at least. His head barely scrapes the ceiling, which makes his gnarled, twisted horns all the more dangerous for structural integrity.

“That should last you three more days,” Lanaste murmurs as she wipes the pitch from her fingertips. “I would say to be wary of strenuous tasks, but I know you won’t. Just be more careful the next time you go out, and I won’t need to reprimand you for opening your wound again.”

A meaty paw comes slapping down on her shoulder at the Inquisitor’s behest, and his boisterous laugh looms over her as she catches herself from falling face-first into the water basin. “Thanks kindly, Lanaste!” a wide grin, a surreptitious wink. “Knew you would be a good find!”

Lanaste can’t suppress her grimace. She can’t recall how many bruises have welted across her body just from the Inquisitor’s strong, physical displays of gratitude. “I do my best,” she mutters low, then cranes her head over her shoulder to fix Varric with a withering glance. “And don’t come back if you can help it, Tethras. I much prefer you when you are not injured.”

Varric laughs. “Got a strange way of showin’ compassion there, Pointy.” Lanaste subconsciously races her hands towards her pointed ears and turns her head away.

“...Whatever you say, Tethras.”

With this, both the Inquisitor and Varric begin to take their leave, and they prepare to continue the conversation they had been engaged in within the infirmary. However, before they can exit, both of them take vocal pauses as another presence enters the infirmary. Varric’s reaction is particularly noticeable even though Lanaste still has her back turned to him.

“Seeker,” Varric murmurs as they pass.

“Dwarf.”

It’s the kind of voice that is sharp enough to cut steel. Accented heavily and lilted to the point of oblivion, Lanaste knows it can belong to only one individual—Cassandra Pentaghast, Seeker, the right hand of the deceased Divine. Lanaste would shudder if she were anyone else, but for now, she continues to wring her hands out in the water basin.

The Inquisitor and Varric leave in silence, and in the absence of the idle chatter, Lanaste is left alone with Cassandra, her patients, and her own thoughts, however loud they may be. The door is shut, and Cassandra commands her attention, though Lanaste does not yield. She is busy, but she will listen.

“Head Surgeon—”

“Lanaste is fine.”

Cassandra’s voice lowers, her teeth grit. “Lanaste,” she begins anew. “I need to speak with you. I have a request to be made.”

Lanaste takes a towel in her hands and pats them dry. “You are speaking to me right now. Feel free to ask what you have come for, Seeker.”

Cassandra pauses, stammers in an uncharacteristic way, before steeling herself and controlling her breathing. She leans in closer to whisper to Lanaste as if there are prying ears within the infirmary, although Lanaste is quite sure that anyone who could have possibly overheard them is currently nursing their wounds through sleep.

“It is about the Commander.”

Now that’s interesting. Lanaste sets down the towel and swivels around on her knees to finally face Cassandra, a pressing look in her crimson eyes. Cassandra is as angular as ever, sharp and robust, a bulwark against the darkness, but her teeth are grit now, and her short black hair flutters into her eyes without a hand immediately moving up to press the unruly strands down. She seems genuinely concerned. “What about him?”

Cassandra’s voice goes lower. “This is to not circulate throughout Skyhold, do you understand?”

Lanaste makes a motion near her mouth as if she is zipping it shut. “Patient confidentiality, Seeker. I would never.”

While most people would be met with a scrutinizing stare from the Seeker at these words, Cassandra is too concerned to bother wondering whether Lanaste is genuine or not. “Commander Cullen is no longer taking lyrium,” she begins. “And his performance is suffering because of it.”

Ah, so that is the problem. Lanaste turns back to the basin and continues to wring out the towel. “That is not news to me, Seeker.”

Cassandra pauses. “How could you possibly know?”

Lanaste’s laugh is bitter and highlights her faint laugh lines in the dim half-light. “One does not reach my position by not possessing some powers of observation. I have dealt with more than enough Templars to know what it looks like when withdrawal takes hold.”

Cassandra’s tongue struggles in her mouth, and she seems to be tempted to ask one last question, but eventually, her concern wins over her curiosity, and the conversation topic is thrown away just as quickly as it is suggested in her mind. Cassandra instead resorts to giving commands in the absence of a question—she is a bossy one, but Skyhold needs someone who knows what they want.

“Then he needs your help,” Cassandra presses finally. “He needs you to relieve the symptoms so he can continue being the Commander. No one else is quite so suited for the job.”

This gives Lanaste pause. She rises to her feet—though even at her full height, she cannot compare to Cassandra’s figure—and she stares down into the water basin, watching how the once clear water swirls with blackened pitch and blood. It is not that she does not wish to assist him—he must be in pain, but she worries what he might discover about her and how it could affect how he views her. Why must it be a Templar? Why must it always be a Templar?

Her next words are her last effort to keep away from the Commander. “Usually, it is the patient requesting my help, not someone unrelated.”

It is at this point that Cassandra presses a piece of torn parchment into Lanaste’s hands, and she is forced to read the messy sprawl of letters entombed within.

‘I, Cullen Rutherford, authorize Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast to remove me from my duty as the Inquisition’s Commander should I become unfit for the tasks required of me.’

Lanaste’s heart sinks. Each letter is penned with immense sorrow within—is there a water stain on one corner of the parchment. Lanaste peers closer, narrowing her eyes, and as she does, Cassandra speaks up once again.

“I will not remove him from his position if it can be helped. I believe you can offer the change he needs.”

Lanaste glances up. In her eyes glitter sympathy beyond what she has ever expressed. At her mercy is a man desperate to become better for himself while the entirety of Thedas rests on his shoulders. He is nobility in all but title. She must not deny treatment from such a man just because of the mantle he had taken upon his shoulders in his youth. Hesitance turns to determination as she casts away all the fears that had once festered deep in her heart.

“...Do you know how far along withdrawal he is?”

Cassandra stammers. Of course, she doesn’t.

“No matter, there is no time to waste,” Lanaste finally says as she presses the parchment back into Cassandra’s palms. “I best begin fixing a treatment for him.”

With this, Lanaste begins to move around the infirmary in a hurry, shifting across outstretched legs and avoiding grasping arms from multiple barely conscious patients as she opens her herb stores. From within hallowed wooden cabinets come embrium flowers, blood lotus roots, and felandaris, along with a mortar and pestle and the tiniest amount of water. All of this is observed by Cassandra with a keen eye, who can only stand to mutter a single phrase. “Then you will help him?”

As Lanaste shoves the herbs into a small unmarked rucksack, she offers Cassandra an incredulous look, and a little smile tugs at the grotesque scar on her left cheek. “Did you really think I wouldn’t?”

Cassandra hesitates, pauses, then shakes her head. “I suppose not.”

With the rucksack fully stocked, Lanaste rises back to her feet, and her red eyes bore into Cassandra’s, even. “Then I must be on my way,” Lanaste proclaims, nodding her head. “Can’t have the Commander getting replaced.”

Cassandra takes no time to be shocked at Lanaste’s intense resolve. “I hope this works…” says the broad-shouldered woman as she turns away from Lanaste, her chest armor clinking in response and glittering in the dim half-light proffered by the lit candles hung haphazardly throughout the wooden building.

“It will.”

Lanaste’s confidence prompts Cassandra to shift her gaze over her shoulder just before she exits the infirmary, her gloved palms clutching the edge of the doorframe just before she surges back into the bitter cold permeating the Skyhold courtyard. “Frequent updates, Lanaste,” orders the black-haired warrior. “I want to know how he is doing.”

Lanaste nods. “Understood, Seeker,” she says as she wraps her palms in unused, clean bandages.

Cassandra takes another step, and this time she looks indeed poised to exit the infirmary, but one last thought stops her. She takes another cautionary glance over her shoulder. “And Lanaste?” she queries, and when the surgeon raises her head, she sees Cassandra’s face to be solemn but genuine. “Thank you for this.”

With that, Cassandra is gone, a slamming door signifying her exit, and in her wake, Lanaste must stifle a laugh. She has never seen the morose Seeker so desperate before, much less has she seen the Seeker thank anyone for anything. The mirth fades as Lanaste realizes what this must mean—either Cassandra truly cares for the Commander, or his condition is severe. Her heart sinks when she realizes that it could reasonably be both options.

There is melancholy assaulting her soul when Lanaste stands up in the infirmary for the last time. She has a rucksack on her back, all of the herbs she will need for Cullen’s treatment within, and it is layered atop a fur-lined navy cloak and brown trousers stained with blood and viscera. Though her alabaster hair barely fits in her updo and her fingertips tremble at moments from overuse, her crimson eyes are deep and dark and determined. There is another patient to assist, after all.

But first…

Lanaste’s piercing eyes narrow as she turns to peer into the darkness behind her, and her suspicions are confirmed when she spots the outline of a living figure hiding within the shadows. “You can come out now.”

At Lanaste’s icy orders, a meek human girl sheepishly steps out from the shadows between folds of tattered clothing clumped upon her body, and she sidesteps scattered glass bottles to avoid knocking them to the floor and shattering them with her clumsiness. She is red-haired, and freckles are scattered generously across her nose like stars in the sky, but none of this distracts from her nervous hands or trembling lip. She walks through the world as if she should not belong there, and she only reflects this in the way her knees audibly knock together whenever she moves. Lanaste cannot help but sigh at this sight—of course, Maribelle heard the entire conversation. She has the tendency to act like a fly on the wall more often than not.

“So I suppose you’ve eavesdropped on this conversation as well, Maribelle?”

Maribelle suddenly scrambles to catch the linen basket she holds as it surreptitiously slips from her fingertips. “Y-yes! I mean, no! I mean,” she stumbles on her own answer, and her further attempts to rectify the situation only make her stutter worse. “I was here, but I tried not to listen… It all sounded very important! Like I wasn’t supposed to hear it!”

She laughs, a nervous titter that betrays the immense fear in her eyes, but Lanaste waves it away as she turns away from Maribelle and her anxious show. “I must do my work, Maribelle,” Lanaste calls over her shoulder. “Hold down the Infirmary while I am gone.”

Maribelle audibly stumbles over herself again but recovers swiftly. “Of course! I’ll do my best!” Maribelle assures her, and though Lanaste does not believe the infirmary to be left in good hands, there is little she can do but trust Maribelle. The girl is a new recruit, an orphan found in the ruins of a farmstead burnt to cinders by the Apostate-Templar conflict, and can barely discern a scalpel from a butcher’s knife, but Lanaste has no other options. Maribelle must do.

“Thank you, Maribelle.”

With this, Lanaste moves to the door, opens it, and surges beyond the threshold into the Skyhold courtyard. The door closes behind her as she leaves the infirmary behind, and her face is immediately assaulted by frigid, pressing winds. She pulls her cloak up and around her jaw and presses onward—to Cullen’s workspace she goes.


End file.
